The Nation: Hillary Clinton: It’s Not Her Turn [View all]

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Hillary Clinton: It’s Not Her Turn
It’s hard to imagine a Democrat of national stature more ill-equipped to speak to the populist mood than HRC.

Richard Kim October 2, 2013 |


Because there are only 824 days to go before the 2016 Iowa caucus, it’s time to start thinking about who should win the Democratic Party’s nomination—Hillary or Not Hillary? Before you roll your eyes and turn the page, allow me to note that all the talk about the next, next national election isn’t just the idle chatter of bored, twitchy journalists. The world may still be waiting for that white plume of smoke to rise above Chappaqua, but Clinton’s supporters are not. They’ve already started a Ready for Hillary PAC, which has raised over a million dollars in its first six months and secured the services of two key former Obama campaigners, Jeremy Bird and Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart. EMILY’s List has launched the Madam President project, which coyly pretends to agitate for a woman president, but which recently hosted town halls in Iowa and New Hampshire that became de facto Clinton rallies. “Go to the Ready for Hillary website!” urged former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm in Manchester. And a slew of prominent women—from minority leader Nancy Pelosi to Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill to Vogue editor Anna Wintour—have pre-emptively pledged their allegiance to HRC. All of which produces the impression that Clinton’s nomination is more than just a likely outcome; it’s an inexorable ascension. As Donna Brazile put it, “If Hillary Clinton gets in the race, there will be a coronation of her.”

Can we please hold the crown for at least another day? Or 824 of them? I’m totally behind the idea of electing a woman president in 2016, and I also understand the wellspring of buyer’s remorse that attaches to Obama’s oft-dispiriting presidency. But anointing Clinton now isn’t just anti-democratic; it paints a big sign on the party’s door: No New Ideas Here.

Here’s how I see it: America has a lot of problems, the most acute of which is the yawning gap between the rich and everyone else. According to Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, the top 1 percent captured 95 percent of all income gains in the so-called recovery, while the bottom 99 percent barely gained at all. And the chances of anyone breaking into that uppermost echelon are dwindling. As a slew of recent studies have shown, America has less class mobility than it used to and less than Canada or Western Europe; an American child born in the lowest quintile has just a 6 percent chance of rising to the top quintile—42 percent will stay at the bottom.

These grim data are more than just an abstraction; they are, as Peter Beinart argues in a Daily Beast article on “The Rise of the New New Left,” the defining condition of the millennial generation, who face scarcer job prospects, lower wages, fewer benefits and a weaker social safety net than those before them. All that anger and discontent that boiled up at Occupy Wall Street two years ago wasn’t swept away with the encampments. It’s simmering, waiting, and even if elections aren’t always the conduit for youth insurrections, it’s hard to see a whole cohort sitting the next big one out as the American dream crumbles around them. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/article/176473/hillary-clinton-its-not-her-turn#sthash.nnYfGmCz.dpuf